Parents who’ve had their lives torn apart by allegations of causing non-accidental injuries to their infants say the state’s refusal to acknowledge misdiagnoses amounts to Starship and Health NZ “hiding behind bureaucracy”.
While no one denies that physical child abuse does occur, the families in the cases uncovered by Newsroom’s investigation’s team say Health NZ’s cookie-cutter responses fall short of the standards expected of the agency in charge of the country’s health system.
For the past three years, Newsroom’s investigations editor, Melanie Reid, and her team have been delving into cases where parents have been accused of injuring their infants but reviews of medical records by international experts have since found the injuries either had other potential causes, such as birth trauma and metabolic bone disease, or did not exist at all.
The team has now been approached by more than 20 families, and have investigated six separate cases, where the evidence put forward by Starship Hospital’s child protection unit, Te Puaruruhau, has been disputed by international experts.
Those cases are detailed in two Newsroom podcast series, Fractured and Diagnosis of a Crime (you can also read more about them in this article) and include an Indian immigrant family who has had their case accepted by the Criminal Cases Review Commission; an Auckland father appealing his conviction after international experts found his infant’s hip injury is consistent with a reported accident and that there is no medical evidence to support the diagnosis of 19 rib fractures; a Central Otago farming couple who spent more than two years battling to regain custody of their twins after a finding of fractures in one of their twins was the turning point for a non-accidental injury diagnosis, yet international experts could again find no evidence of those fractures; and the three-week criminal trial of a Dunedin professional athlete accused of causing rib fractures to his four-week-old baby.
These cases sit within a growing body of international reporting and litigation challenging the foundations of certain infant non-accidental injury diagnoses.
Investigations by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald in Australia and The New York Times in the United States have similarly raised concerns about an over-reliance on contested diagnoses, the lack of challenge to a small circle of expert witnesses and the life-altering consequences when they are wrong.
However, Health NZ has broadly refused to engage with the new evidence uncovered during Reid’s investigation or hold anyone accountable for possible wrongful allegations.
The international experts approached by Reid agree with the Starship doctors that some of the injuries sustained by the infants in these cases could be indicative of non-accidental injury and warrant further investigation on admission to hospital.
However, in these cases, international experts repeatedly found New Zealand doctors did not consider other explanations, such as severe vitamin D deficiencies (which can affect bone health) or injuries sustained during birth, when diagnosing the cause of the injuries. The experts were also concerned no independent obstetrical review was ordered in any of the cases.
The families at the centre of these investigations now say there needs to be accountability. They have accused Health NZ and decision-makers of burying their heads in the sand, while those affected by these accusations of non-accidental injury have been left to pick up the pieces.
Health NZ rolls out generic response to high-stakes cases
As new evidence has emerged in the past three years, Reid and her team have repeatedly asked Health NZ specific questions about the cases, while also putting to them that this could be indicative of a systemic problem.
These questions have largely been unanswered by Health NZ, which has instead offered generic responses such as: “We remain confident in the expertise of our Starship radiology and child protection teams.”
In the cases where multiple international experts found no evidence of the fractures diagnosed by Starship doctors, Reid and her team asked Health NZ on several occasions to have the Starship doctors specifically mark up the fractures they identified on the x-rays and scans. They haven’t responded to those specific requests.
More than 20 emails have been sent to Health NZ seeking clarification, independent review or acknowledgement of possible error.
Its answer is the same: “We remain confident in the expertise of our Starship radiology and child protection teams.”
In some emailed responses, Health NZ has said it would be inappropriate to comment where evidence had been given as part of a court proceeding.
“Where Health New Zealand clinicians provide evidence in a court proceeding, that process is presided over by a Judge and is subject to rules of evidence and procedure applicable in those proceedings. Health New Zealand is not a party to those proceedings. Any concerns about the outcome of a court proceeding should be addressed through the appropriate legal process,” the agency said.
In November 2025, when Reid’s team sought comments from Health NZ regarding the details of the case of the Auckland father serving a six-year sentence for non-accidental injuries to his one-year-old son, the agency said it could not comment without a privacy waiver. Once the waiver was provided they said they had no obligation to comment:
“Privacy waivers are for consideration by our clinical and legal teams and Health New Zealand does not have an obligation to comment as outlined within our privacy waiver policy.”
Reid’s team has asked whether Health NZ accepts there may be a systemic issue involving the over-diagnosis or misdiagnosis of non-accidental injury; it responded “There is no evidence to suggest, as you have claimed, that there is ‘a serious systemic issue’.”
They also asked whether Health NZ intended to commission any independent review, audit or investigation into these concerns. Again, the question was not directly addressed.
Reid’s team have told Health NZ they believe the lack of detailed responses from the agency and from the Starship experts – namely radiologist Dr Russell Metcalfe and former Te Puaruruhau clinical director Dr Patrick Kelly – falls short of the standards expected of a public health service.
In one email from March this year regarding the alleged fractures sustained by the Central Otago farming family’s firstborn twin, which international experts found do not exist, Reid wrote to Health NZ: “This matter raises significant issues of public interest, public safety and statutory responsibility, and Health NZ, as a publicly funded government agency, has a responsibility to carry out this request.”
Health NZ repeatedly assured Reid and her team that Kelly and Metcalfe were aware of Newsroom’s queries.
Reid’s team asked Kelly – via Health NZ – to respond to the reports of Harvard-trained radiologist Dr Julie Mack and orthopaedic surgeon Dr Doug Benson, who both independently concluded there was no evidence of fractures in the firstborn twin. They asked whether he stood by his sworn affidavit.
Kelly replied via his lawyers, saying he couldn’t respond to the experts’ findings without their full reports, their names and credentials.
Further correspondence went back and forth in which we pointed out that we had already supplied the names of the international experts to Health NZ, and that all Kelly had to do was look at Starship Hospital’s own medical files and tell us if he remained firm on the diagnosis that Twin One had fractures.
“[Twin One’s] x-rays were reviewed multiple times by highly qualified paediatric radiologists in both Dunedin and Auckland, and they all agreed that [Twin One] had multiple metaphyseal fractures. Sworn affidavits from two of these radiologists were produced as evidence in the Family Court. Dr Kelly sees no reason not to accept their opinion.”
When Reid’s team asked once again for Kelly or a Starship radiologist to circle the fractures on the x-rays, they did not respond to this request.
Political silence
With no substantive response from Health NZ and the Starship team, Reid’s team asked political leaders whether they would take action.
Last November, Newsroom approached responsible ministers regarding these specific cases to ask whether there could be a systemic issue, and what they would be willing to do about that.
No one responded.
Phone calls were followed by emailed requests to the offices of Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith, Children’s Minister (who also happens to be the Minister for the Prevention of Sexual and Family Violence) Karen Chhour, and Health Minister Simeon Brown.
Following the revelation that international experts were unable to identify the 19 rib fractures in the case of the young Auckland father behind bars, the three ministers were asked what process existed when a person is imprisoned on the basis of medical evidence that multiple independent experts say does not exist, whether they would consider asking Health NZ to carry out an independent review of the CT scans and x-rays from this case by external specialists, and whether they would consider a wider review into similar cases that relied on medical evidence from Starship Hospital’s child protection unit.
While no official comments were received from the ministers’ offices, a spokesperson for Goldsmith said the minister was aware of the query and twice promised to respond. At one point the spokesperson sent a text message saying he would chase the minister for a response, “However I can already say it’ll basically be a ‘I can’t comment’,” he said.
Goldsmith (and other ministers) did not provide an official response.
Reid sent a separate email to a spokesperson for Brown. Brown’s office forwarded that request to Health NZ.
‘We’ve been left to carry the wreckage’
The Central Otago mother who lost custody of her eight-week-old twins for more than two years after Starship doctors diagnosed fractures in one twin’s knees – findings that became the turning point in the abuse diagnosis but which overseas experts later concluded did not exist – said Health NZ and Starship had failed in their duty and needed to be held accountable.
“There are no words strong enough to describe the cruelty of being left to rebuild your life after profound medical harm, only to be met with silence from the very institutions responsible,” she said.
“While our family continues to live with PTSD, trauma, grief and the fallout of failures that should never have happened, Starship and Health NZ have failed to offer what any decent system should: accountability, honesty, and a genuine apology.
“Instead, we have been left to carry the wreckage alone while those responsible retreat behind bureaucracy and silence. It is a profound failure of duty, of integrity, and of basic human decency – and to be blunt, it is fucking unforgivable!”
The mother of the child in the case of the Dunedin pro athlete, who was found not guilty by a court in a recent three-week criminal trial, said despite going through all the proper channels no one has been held accountable for their actions.
“The paediatric ward, doctors and southern DHB including the Health and Disability Commissioner have taken no responsibility for what they have done, how they treated our family, the accusations or the lack of follow-up,” she told Reid.
“There was no proper accountability, action or consequences for the involved staff and no formal apology or compensation for what they put our family through for two years, and now the trauma that surrounds our trust in their medical treatment should our children require it in the future.”
Meanwhile, the mother of the young Auckland father, who is currently two years into a six-year prison sentence, asked what it would take for Health NZ to reflect on the harm that had been caused in these cases – and possibly others.
“How long can they roll out the ‘We have faith in the ability of our child protection team’ when they are being proven to be blatantly wrong?”
She went on to say: “One so-called expert from Starship can destroy a family with three letters – NAI [non-accidental injury] – stand in court and give his opinion and a young man goes to prison based on his say so. His young son loses his dad, his partner loses her partner and a family loses their son. His business is gone. Financially, emotionally and mentally, everything has been taken away.”
‘Suspicion is not evidence’
The growing number of cases investigated by Reid and her team suggest there could be a broader issue when it comes to attributing certain injuries to non-accidental injury.
As US radiologist, Dr Julie Mack, told the court in the case involving the Dunedin pro athlete, suspicion and evidence are not the same thing.
“I absolutely agree that if you have multiple rib fractures in a child; when you see them on an x-ray it fits suspicion and that child should be referred … What you can’t do is say that suspicion and evidence is the same because it’s not,” Mack said.
“It’s very important to understand this issue of how the diagnosis of a crime is made by medicine.”
“There is no gold standard in this. The physicians, if they think it’s abuse, that’s the true positive. That’s the gold standard. Well, that’s not science, it’s opinion.”
This comes after judgments in both New Zealand and around the world have overturned charges and convictions based on the testimony of medical experts, and as the scientific literature throws into doubt the medical orthodoxies around non-accidental injury, so-called shaken baby syndrome and the prevalence and impact of traumatic births and severe vitamin D deficiency in infants.
In New Zealand in 2013, then-High Court Judge Graham Pankhurst said medical experts too quickly concluded a 14-month-old baby’s injuries had been caused by abuse, without properly considering other possible explanations.
Pankhurst overturned the original care and protection order that removed the child from the custody of the parents, saying the Family Court judge’s assessment of the parents was never put alongside the medical evidence. “He [the Family Court judge] proceeded on the basis that the medical evidence was so compelling that there was no room for doubt.”
Meanwhile, the state of New Jersey has now banned testimonies on shaken baby syndrome, saying they are unreliable and did not rest on “reliable, well-supported scientific evidence”.
And last year, 134 doctors, lawyers, researchers and social workers from 12 different countries signed an open letter published by France’s Le Monde newspaper, saying this needed to be looked at through a societal lens.
“The debate is essential, because the goal is the same for everyone: to protect children who are truly in danger without creating additional victims.
“Children die due to ignorance of rare diseases, obstetric trauma, and the dangers of falls.
“Throwing innocent people into prison or removing sick babies from loving parents protects no one. In the best interests of the child, it is imperative that advances in knowledge acquired over decades finally permeate emergency departments and courtrooms.”
Former Human Rights and Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres said there was currently no accountability for those who did make wrongful allegations, which he believed saw them rush to judgment.
“This is clearly a systemic issue and needs to be inquired into independently to put right past injustices and prevent future ones. We are all rightly concerned about child abuse, but we must also care for those who are wrongfully accused of it,” de Bres wrote.
“While internationally these diagnoses are increasingly challenged, the medical establishment in New Zealand remains unmoved.
“An independent inquiry must be conducted to hear the parents’ stories and critically examine the validity of the scientific and legal basis on which such prosecutions are being brought. Otherwise, there is a real risk that more parents will be wrongfully convicted and more children will be unnecessarily removed from their parents by the state.”
To hear more about this issue, you can listen to both seasons of Fractured and both seasons of Diagnosis of a Crime by searching for our channel Delve on Spotify, Apple or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
